When attending a day care center, kids are focused on having fun. They don’t worry about how much paint, glue, and paper is in the supply closet. And day care center managers in Denmark want to keep it that way. With user experience (UX) design services from SAP, software provider KMD made ordering supplies fast and easy, getting managers off their computers and back to their classrooms.

Customer Snapshot:History

Driving IT Innovation that Improves Public Services Across Denmark

One of the largest software providers in the country, KMD helps the Danish government run better. For almost 40 years it has played a key role in digitizing Danish welfare services, helping to make Denmark one of the world’s most innovative, efficient, and effective providers of e-government services.

1972

KMD was founded in Denmark and the company opened their first data center

2005

KMD and SAP teamed up to launch a powerful partnership of success and innovation

2006

KMD designed and deployed the IT foundation to support the Danish municipal merger

2008

KMD partnered with DONG Energy to reduce their carbon impact. They made the switch to greener energy sources and reduced overall energy consumption

Present

KMD worked in partnership with SAP to deliver tailor-made solutions to help digitize public services in Denmark

Customer Snapshot:Business Model

IT Systems to Get People the Support and Services They Need

By developing and operating more than 400 IT systems to support and streamline Denmark’s welfare services, KMD is making the lives of Danes easier from the day they are born through old age. KMD systems handle everything from parental leave pay following the birth of a child to family allowance benefits to state pensions.

This means millions of people are relying on KMD for the safe and secure processing and delivery of billions of kroner each year – more than 25% of Denmark’s GDP.

A large portion of local government finances is also handled by KMD financial management systems. Roughly one million Danes working in the private and public sectors can count on getting their pay checks on time, thanks to KMD payroll systems. KMD systems also support many administrative processes, such as HR and payroll, for various local government agencies and private sector companies.

Customer Snapshot:Success Strategy

Leading the Way to a Digital Future

To keep providing superior services to growing populations with fewer employees and tighter budgets, national and local governments must move into the digital future today. KMD is dedicated to helping Denmark continuously innovate and improve human services using IT. Digital solutions that are custom designed to meet individual user needs will not only help government employees do more with less, they will also ensure that the people get the top-notch services they both expect and rely on.

The Challenge

More Time on the Computer Means Less Time with the Children

Jan Høst Hansen manages a day care center that caters to children ages five to ten, offering before- and afterschool care that includes playtime, art, homework help, and more. Jan wears many hats – that of employer, administrator, and teacher. One of his jobs is to make sure that he has enough supplies to support activities for up to 250 children a day. But ordering supplies was a complicated task. It was difficult to see what he had in stock and what he needed to buy.

Also, submitting payments required many steps, making the process tedious and time consuming. The problem was that the software he was using was not optimized to meet his needs as the day care center manager. He was spending more and more time in front of the computer and less time working with the children.

We see employees and kindergarten managers becoming our user group more and more. And they have a need for a very simple and targeted user interface – low complexity. And for them, usability is implied. It’s not something we discuss with them – they just expect it.– Sine Dietrich Greyersen, Business Architect, KMD A/S

Enter SAP

Collaborating to Improve the User Experience for Almost 10 Years

KMD has partnered with SAP since 2005, and they enlisted the help of user experience (UX) experts from the SAP Active Global Support (SAP AGS) organization to address the challenge of making supply ordering simpler and faster for day care center managers.

UX design services from SAP would help KMD pinpoint problems with the current solution, better understand the issues faced by day care center managers, and design a user interface to meet their unique supply management needs.

Enter SAP:The SAP Experience

Working with Users to Understand Their Needs

The task was clear – KMD and the SAP UX experts needed to go to the source – the user. That meant heading to the day care center in Aars to talk with Jan as well as meeting with other day care center managers. Through a series of two-day workshops on site, the team gained a detailed understanding of how these managers were using the software, identified the roadblocks, and figured out what would make tracking and ordering supplies easier.

As part of a design thinking workshop for business innovation, KMD and the team of UX experts from SAP compiled the data from their research on day care centers and their notes from user interviews as the baseline for developing ideas that would result in an ideal user experience for the supply ordering process.

The single most important concept driving the project? Focus on the user.

By analyzing the existing software and observing both managers and employees at work, it became clear that, although the software was meant for ordering new materials, it was not suited to one of the day care center’s key needs, which was to place the same order again and again. The team learned that to work around the problem, managers were still using folders and paper documents instead of the digital system. There was no doubt that the process needed to be simpler.

Better Business

A New Solution To Streamline Supply Orders

KMD and SAP developed a prototype solution that was connected to backend SAP applications. The new application was then tested at multiple day care centers to see if it hit the mark. The fact that it could be accessed on both desktops and mobile devices was a huge bonus, and the new default settings for placing repeat orders greatly streamlined the ordering process.

The work together with the customer was very beneficial. We came up with new ways to simplify, to optimize the design, to reduce complexity, to bring up useful defaults to the user, and to make the whole thing much tighter for their needs.– Kai Richter, UI Designer, SAP SE

Better Business:Benefits

More Time on What Matters Most – the Children

For Jan the benefits are clear. The intuitive design of the new application allows him to access his shopping cart with just one click. This means he can spend less time at the computer and more time doing what he loves. This is good news for KMD. Together with SAP AGS and using UX design services, the company was able to meet their customer’s challenge – helping Denmark take yet another step forward as a leader in e-government technology.

But, most importantly, the kids can continue playing and learning with their teacher’s full focus – and the supplies they need to expand their horizons.

Better Business:Run Simple

Dedicated to Denmark – Now and in the Future

Now that Jan and other day care center workers across Denmark can order new supplies with ease, KMD is focusing on new projects to modernize and streamline the nation’s public services.

Journey Ahead

Bringing the Power of SAP HANA to Town Councils Across Denmark

KMD and SAP continue to collaborate on driving competitive advantage for KMD customers through new and innovative ways of working. They are currently working on business case prototypes to help town councils investigate the potential benefits of the SAP HANA platform for increased data processing demands. They are also launching projects to help other public sector customers realize the benefits of SAP Mobile Platform to enable flexible, remote work via mobile device.